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by Centurian on 18 September 2019 - 12:09
I will add onto you comment . Aside from personal feelings about the GS .. Let's put that aside for the moment . You make a very very important point that is valid from another direction : If one wants a dog to be most watchful of family and property ... then that dog should be in the place that it will value. That is to say : if you want a dog to watch over your house and family then that is where it should be and the dog belongs . If you want that dog to place it's value on a kennel ... then that is where you would put it.
Some people simply don't want their homes dirty .. Huh, I have had 12 GS live in my home all at the same time and I will tell you that my house was much cleaner than the average USA family's home. Secondly , some people feel that if a dog is in a kennel it will work better... IMOp that is just code for : my dog does not have the genetic make up for what I need it to do , so let's try sensory deprivation to get it's a** moving . Dogs are pack animals and let's not forget that fact . Also .. I have had a number of canine officer friends , years ago of course , that kept their canine officer friend in the house with thier families while off duty !! This may seem a little off topic but :
One of the biggest reasons some of the highest placed Show Line GS are placed innkennles aside from making them want to work is that the owners do not want any attachment to the dog because in thier eyes the dogs are strictly business and if that dog ever became of value , as what has so often been done , that dog will be sold for a bag of gold in a heart beat ! That is a major reason for the show dog's exisence and that is the truth whether we like it or not ! So does anyone really care for that matter where the dog lives ?... And to me , that IS SAD .

by Hired Dog on 18 September 2019 - 12:09
Gustav, you are are asking for too much sir...the answer is obvious, getting that answer from those who refuse to see it is another story.

by Irina Kuznetsova on 18 September 2019 - 13:09
V22 1151 Eskan vom Winnloh
Jaime Huerta Carrasco Ciudad de Mexico MX
by Klossbruhe on 18 September 2019 - 14:09
There is no answering your question definitively. I have lived in both Germany and Austria and I can tell you that you can still see many SL dogs doing police and customs work, avalanche work, seeing eye and other things. They are not in the majority but it is not rare. But in the States you rarely see them at all. I think the main reason for this is cost. The same is true of seeing eye dogs. It used to be that the GSD was not only called a police dog but also a seeing eye dog. Back in the 1960s and before, they were the only dogs used as blind person assistants. You do not even see WL dogs being used as seeing eye dogs very often. Perhaps it is because the temperament of these dogs is not suitable for blind assistance work. It seems to me that many posters have forgotten that the GSD was created to be an all rounder, a dog which could do anything fairly well, not just one thing, bitework, extremely well. Best at nothing, second best at everything. They used to call the GSD a Swiss Army Knife on four legs.
A short aside with regard to herding. I knew both Karl Fuller and Wilfred Scheld. I have watched Karl, may he rest in peace, and his Kirschental dogs herd on more than one occasion and I would take serious issue with the poster who says that SL dogs ruined herding and that the herding they do cannot compare to yesteryear. In any case, it is virtually a moot point. How much herding is done nowadays. ...
Back to Gustav's question, some years ago, I had the privilege of working with a trainer in the metropolitan area where I was living who trains dogs and their handlers for 40 police departments. Up until the 1990s SL dogs were primarily used. However, as the cost of obtaining ordinary SL dogs skyrocketed, it was no longer viable to use them. The cost of training a service dog and a handler for the police, at least in the States, is very high. In Germany, there are schools, rather than individual trainers, where departments can send their handlers and these schools have working relationships with several breeders. Again, in the States, the same was true for blind dog schools and the military who previously often used SL dogs. Because of cost, even of importing WL dogs, the military now breeds their own.
Most of the posters here will tell you the answer to your question is temperament. I do not wish to get involved in this discussion. However, I will say that when it became necessary for a dog to do well in the working class to have a SchH, IPO, IGP 3 by age two, things changed radically for SL dogs because of the way they have to be trained to get such titles so quickly. Very few 2 year old dogs are going to do great obedience or bitework in such a short time. Acceptable maybe. Yes, they can scrape through but the pressure that is required to get a dog through this has a telling effect. When I had this discussion with a good friend of mine who is an SV Judge and has twice finished second in the BSP, he laughed. No one who seriously wants to compete in local, regional or national trials takes a dog that is so young. Usually they are four or five years old.
by apple on 18 September 2019 - 15:09
Heyne is very angry because he has seen by experience that dogs like his Luki which are genetically outstanding herding dogs cannot get a Koer rating because of minor “faults”. Luki, for example, has a slight overbite — so a few millimeters are reason enough to throw away valuable genetic capabilities. This is frustrating for him: “If this wellspring of the GSD had been used more, we still would have a diligent, hard-working dog today. The GSD’s willingness to work has decreased to such an extent — but you can’t tell that to the show breeders.”
This is from an old interview with Manfred Heyne, who was a sheep herder in Germany and bred true working/herding GSDs. You can read how the SV screwed up the herding genetics due to overemphasis on minor structural faults. This is exactly what happened in the show lines.

by emoryg on 18 September 2019 - 15:09

by Irina Kuznetsova on 18 September 2019 - 16:09
V23 1188 Benedict vom Frankengold
Frank Goldlust Berlin D

by GK1 on 18 September 2019 - 16:09
…Dr Messler back in the 1990s,and the conclusion not just of Dr Messler but of university clinical orthopedic veterinary specialists who made the videos was that the modern back which the SL have is far better suited to absorb the shock of impact and to offer less chance of permanent injury to the dog than that the flat or concave back.
Has anyone heard of this study as being credible or having any impact on current breeding practices?

by emoryg on 18 September 2019 - 16:09
by Centurian on 18 September 2019 - 17:09
Also ..... there is another component : The SL dogs is Germany are still the BEST ! Anyone will tell you as fact , they never ever , if they can help it , let their best SL get out of Germany . I can tell you with reasonable certainty , the GS in the USA , although some are very good SL , they do not 100% nearly compare . Rhtoerically , when have you last seen at the World Sieger Show a USA VA-1 placed GS ? Now to piggy back on that statement .... many , many , many current GS , again not all , but MANY do not have the stress level even for everyday performances aside from protection . Many are afraid of their own shadow , at least here in ther USA that I have seen .... and many people show me their SL GSs !!! For S&R , for cadeaver recovery , for scent detection , for seeing eye , for therapy & assistance , etc etc , the dog needs a minimum of stress level to cope with ALL the environmental stitations . Many SL GSs lack this minimum stress level ... again , not all but enough of a percentage. in the USA. So , IMOP the Sieger Show is not a true representation of the state of the SL GS ,. Maybe in Germany and other European countries but I tell you from my personal experience , not here in the USA .
Kloss , there is a bit of thruth and non truth at times ..... Depends .....
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